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Help! Too many piano choices!

I am starting a project which involves arrangements for THREE pianos. It will be mixed both in stereo and in 5.1 surround. I use a Windows environment.

The choice of sampled pianos out there is driving me crazy! All of the demos sound pretty good, though I have to admit that the Sythogy Ivory samples really seemed to stand out, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

So, I ask you cranky old experts:

1. Which sampled piano(s) should I be considering for purchase? Price is no object ... well, it is, of course, but none of the pianos I've seen are so horribly expensive that I can't consider them.

2. How would YOU mix THREE pianos in a stereo/5.1 product? A piano in each front speaker, with ambience in the back?

Re: Help! Too many piano choices!

Originally Posted by Eyecatcher

I am starting a project which involves arrangements for THREE pianos. It will be mixed both in stereo and in 5.1 surround. I use a Windows environment.

The choice of sampled pianos out there is driving me crazy! All of the demos sound pretty good, though I have to admit that the Sythogy Ivory samples really seemed to stand out, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

So, I ask you cranky old experts:

1. Which sampled piano(s) should I be considering for purchase? Price is no object ... well, it is, of course, but none of the pianos I've seen are so horribly expensive that I can't consider them.

2. How would YOU mix THREE pianos in a stereo/5.1 product? A piano in each front speaker, with ambience in the back?

Re: Help! Too many piano choices!

Hi Eycatcher,
Sounds like an exciting project.
I recently heard some very impressive 5.1 recordings of pianos that could serve your project. The idea with 3 pianos would not be to simply place each piano in one of the front speakers and add ambience in the rear. That would make each piano mono which is highly unnatural.
Instead I would spread each piano over two speakers for a nice wide open image. Piano 1 and 2 would be spread over Front and Rear Left and Front/Rear Right. The 3th piano could be spread over Front Left and right or a combination of Centre and L/R. Centre speaker can have ambience, special focus on melody lines etc. Naturally a 5.1 reverb, like Waves IR360 or similar hardware unit would be preferred to get natural surrounding ambience that can show up on all speakers.

Regarding the pianos to use...I agree the choice is confusing. There are more than 40 piano libraries out there. Listening to all piano demos out there would cost you at least a whole week!
The best place to start is (as always) Purgatory Creek. The demos there are created with one standard midi test file and that makes them rather "unnatural" since they ware not played by a human who adjusts his playing to the sound. Nevertheless it gives a nice first impression of the overall sound, stereo spread and dynanamics. They provide links to the vendor websites where more musical demos can be found.
Naturally I'll plug my piano libraries here. We currently have 8 grand pianos available (www.postpiano.com) that all received raving reviews in magazines and by users. Our libraries are used by major artists around the world and are as realistic as you can get. In fact we recently had comments that our libraries are "too relalistic" to be used in pop music, where an artificial sound is easier to handle. I regard that as a compliment. Anyway, we have 2 GigaBytes of audiodemos and playable demoversions on our website so I would suggest to visit our website.

P.S. The best deal on our site is the Piano Magic bundle (all 8 pianos for just $450!)

and i decided to stop shopping so to speak > its like hardware synths, (or east west sample libraries) every couple of months there are new stuff available !! > the new ultimate steinway grand d etc etc

it gets too much and i learned to work with what i got and tweak them now and stop listening to a gazillion demo's.....and yet i will still ask the question >

its like i will never be happy and still searching for that ultimate piano > lol

(in a way we are all compulsive piano sample buyers )

so here goes my question :

is there anyone out here that can recommend one that i might have to look at ? in adition to what i got at the moment ?

and i decided to stop shopping so to speak > its like hardware synths, (or east west sample libraries) every couple of months there are new stuff available !! > the new ultimate steinway grand d etc etc

it gets too much and i learned to work with what i got and tweak them now and stop listening to a gazillion demo's.....and yet i will still ask the question >

its like i will never be happy and still searching for that ultimate piano > lol

(in a way we are all compulsive piano sample buyers )

so here goes my question :

is there anyone out here that can recommend one that i might have to look at ? in adition to what i got at the moment ?